“Gatov-East”

For this week’s artist interview, I interviewed Elia Murray. Elia’s creative artwork involves sculptures, painting, and drawing. Everything in the photograph of Elia’s artwork was created by her. The stuffed animals were also made by her. It was very hard for me to believe that an artist can create those stuffed animals until Elia described how she made them. They look like they could be made by a factory but they are not! I became interested in having one for myself because she said not every stuffed animal she made is the same because some might contain more cotton inside or the stitching would be different. If I were to buy a stuffed animal made by Elia, it would be different from any of the other one made.

Elia’s artwork can be bought by anyone. She currently has a website that sells all of her creations. The reason why she does this is because she needs to buy art supplies. Selling her artwork is a bonus to her account because it allows her to buy supplies she needs for school and to create artwork for people who are interested. Elia was highly influenced by her parents to become an artist. Her dad taught her how to draw and her mom completely influenced her to be an artist. Elia originally wanted to major in English but decided to become an artist. It was not a bad thing that her parents made her become an artist because her artwork is very nice and it has a meaning to what she is painting/creating. Every character she makes involves a lot of time and in the end they look perfect. She hopes one day her characters can be brought to life on screen.

If you see the picture that I took of Elia’s artwork, the portrait that has the big doctor and a little girl on a chair was inspired by a health care article. The whole time she focused on creating a balancing image whole having fun at the same time. The portrait that has a fish was created based on a poem she had to read in one of her classes. All of her portraits/characters have a meaning to them. She does not make artwork that can be interpreted in many ways. Not only does she draw fake characters and makes sculptures, she also can draw dog portraits for anyone interested. A small fee is applied. Elia is also into poetry. Remember when I said she wanted to major in English, well that how she got her poetic side. Currently she is working on a book made on a myth about how a black bear turns into a polar bear. The current working title is: A Bear in the Snow.

This week I got to see weaving in an artistic perspective thanks to Dawn Ertl. When arriving to Dawn’s show room, all students had to remove their bags. The reason to why we had to remove our bags is because we can get one of the fiber strings attached to our bag and cause severe damage to her art work. Dawn only had two art pieces being displayed and they both took a tremendous amount of time to complete. Dawn had said that “weaving is a process that takes time in order to make it perfect.” She has to deal with a lot of obstacles like if slightly tug on a fiber strand, the shape will then become compressed. Dawn also said that “simply putting the loom’s in a box changes the shape of the whole art work.”

Going back to the time I arrived at the gallery, I also noticed that the gallery had music playing. I believe that is the first gallery I have been to that has music playing in the background. The whole thought of having music in the gallery is a good idea. Dawn had a whole a page of the songs playing in her gallery. I was told that the music playing is to set the mood and to bring happiness to the people around their. The picture I took of the art work is actually completely composed of trash thrown on earth. The artist had stated that this piece of art is the relationship humans have with the environment.

I was completely surprised with this artwork because you are able to see all the time and effort put forth in order to complete this masterpiece. Not only are all the color mixed together in a nice manner, all the strands that hang from each area brings all your attention. Its like if you look and cant stop looking. Its surprising that Dawn has only been weaving about 6 years now and her success is able to be seen. Too bad that this was her last show here.